Douglas v McLernon [No 3]

The case of Douglas v McLernon [No 3] involved a defamation claim where the plaintiff, Douglas, sought to hold Ms Fitzgerald liable for defamatory material published on the McLernon File website. Douglas alleged that Ms Fitzgerald assisted in uploading the defamatory material and creating the infrastructure for its display. The central dispute was whether Ms Fitzgerald, who had purchased a domain name and engaged a web designer, could be held liable for the subsequent defamatory publications on the website.

The primary legal issue before the court was whether Ms Fitzgerald could be held liable for the defamatory content published on the website she had commissioned. This involved determining whether her involvement in purchasing a domain name and engaging a web designer to create the website made her an accessory to the publication of the defamatory material. The court had to consider whether such actions alone could establish her liability as a publisher of the defamatory content.

In examining the evidence presented, the court found that there was no direct involvement by Ms Fitzgerald in the actual content uploaded by McLernon. The court drew an analogy to a seller of a motor vehicle who cannot be held liable for the actions of the purchaser once the vehicle is sold. Similarly, the purchase of a domain name and the creation of a website did not, in and of itself, make Ms Fitzgerald responsible for the content uploaded by the website's operator. The court also noted that there was no precedent suggesting that a director's involvement in a company that provides web-related services would automatically make them liable for defamatory content published on a client's website.

The court concluded that without additional evidence of direct involvement in the creation or publication of the defamatory content, Ms Fitzgerald could not be held liable for the material published on the website. The court dismissed the claim against Ms Fitzgerald, finding that there was no case to answer.

The court's final order was that the defamation claim against Ms Fitzgerald was dismissed due to no case being established against her.